How can renters “go green?”
Amidst gardeners spraying vegetables with green garden hoses and children pushing plastic wheelbarrels with white lettering reading “Palo Alto Community Garden,” Rita Morgin sits down on a wooden bench with a white plastic bucket in her lap. Inside the bucket are fresh blackberries that are just sweet enough to make Morgin’s lips pucker.
“I live in an apartment, so my green options are limited,” Morgin said.
Morgin, a single parent who makes a living through day-care work, selling Tupperware and gardening, earns less than $16,000 a year. While Morgin can’t afford to have a hybrid car, she still cares for the planet and does her part by working her two plots in the community garden.
Morgin said she started gardening at the community garden for the “exercise, religion and psychotherapy.” The community garden is also one of her few options to go green.
Renters often don’t have any incentives to go green. They expect their landlords to provide the low-flow showerheads or double-paned windows.
“There is a disconnect because you are paying rent,” Morgin said. “You don’t see the direct cost with the direct benefit.”
Your local hardware store carries the cheap, eco-friendly supplies that show the direct cost benefit.
Low-flow showerheads at $15 can save up to $300 on water costs per year. Compact fluorescent lightbulbs cost five times as much as their incandescent counterparts. You can see a huge energy savings if you switch lightbulbs.
And lets not have any jokes about the “high-tech” solar clothes dryer (a clothesline with clothespins), which saves significant green in comparison to the quarters used at the laundromat.
While your local hardware store carries these green supplies, there are still far more nongreen options filling the shelves. People still need to educate themselves and become involved to go green.
This retractable clothesline fits over a bath tub area and allow clothes to be hung inside while the dripping goes down the drain. The line extends up to 8′ and can be retracted when not in use. The housing is made of stainless steel so there is no rust. Easy to install.
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